in the discovery of the character of those by whom he was surrounded. If suspicion once took root in his breast touching the fidelity or consistency of any of his subordinates, he would lay the most artful snare to detect the wavering dependent, and banishment from his presence and service was the immediate consequence. A patriot king should, however, be himself consistent; he has but one rule and guide of his actions, and that is, the good and welfare of the people whom he governs. One of the prerogatives of royalty is the reward of merit; and when that reward is justly and impartially distributed, the arts and sciences flourish, and genius feels an encouragement to prosecute its discoveries for the general benefit of its country and the collected human race. We are, however, now on the point of exposing an instance of the grossest inconsistency on the part of the Prince of Wales, in the distribution of the honours and emoluments attached to his royal station, and which will go to prove, that the most patriotic sentiments can on one occasion issue from the lips of a Prince, and that the very next moment he can act in direct opposition to them.

A very short time after the Prince had become Regent, a place of considerable emolument, and of great trust and importance, became vacant; and for this place a certain duke, just then come of age, solicited the minister in behalf of a very near relation. Mr. Perceval accordingly proposed the appointment to the Regent. To this the Prince replied, that the candidate was already in possession of considerable public emolument, and expressed a wish to know upon what peculiar merits or services Mr. Perceval rested his claims to additional recompense. The premier urged his relationship to a noble duke, who possessed great parliamentary influence, and who, it could not be expected, would exert that influence in favour of ministers unless they complied with his wishes by the appointment of his relation to the desired situation. Upon this avowal, the Prince is said to have expressed, in strong terms, his indignation, and to have declared unequivocally, that he trusted Mr. Perceval would never again ground the claims of any man to any place of confidence and responsibility upon such kind of merits, for that he would always look to the public interest in such appointments, and not to the interest or power of the ministry. This declaration, so manly and patriotic, revived

the almost exhausted and worn-out hopes and expectations of the reformists, but they were doomed to experience fresh mortification and disappointment.

The following we offer as a contrast to the above, and as a proof that the public interest was not always paramount in the mind of his Royal Highness the Regent.

By the death of General Fox, the office of Paymaster of the Widows' Pensions became vacant. He who holds this office has nothing to perform: it may, in fact, be considered as one of the snuggest sinecures in the gift of the crown, the holder having only to receive his own emolument-the pension of the widows being paid at the office of the Secretary at War, by persons appointed for that express purpose. It had generally been bestowed upon some veteran officer, as a reward for his services; but the time was now arrived when it was to be given away to an individual, whose chief merit lay in being purveyor-general of female beauty to the royal harem, and professor of sycophancy at the court of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of England.

The objection to the office of Paymaster of the Widows' Pensions rests not, however, solely on its being a sinecure, but the emoluments of it are actually derived from a per centage on the sum of money annually voted by parliament for the pensions of the widows of those men who have offered up their lives for the service of their country. From every pittance doled out to the distressed widow, a certain portion was laid aside to support the pampered menial of a court in luxury and extravagance to enable him to spend his midnight hours at the gaming-table, or at the bacchanalian orgies of the profligate and the dissipated. If justice, if honour, if common feeling and humanity, call for the redress of any abuse, it must be the redress of such an abuse as this, than which no greater disgrace can stain the government and the nation which tolerate it. Viewed simply in a financial point of view, the situation ought to have been abolished at the death of General Fox, and accordingly the Committee of Finance had strongly recommended its total and immediate abolition on the decease of that officer. Yet, notwithstanding this recommendation— notwithstanding the flattering and constitutional declaration of his Royal Highness, that he held the crown for the benefit of

his people-notwithstanding his patriotic sentiment expressed to Mr. Perceval, in the case already mentioned, that he would always look to the public interest in granting government appointments; and, finally, notwithstanding whoever held the office must have received the emoluments, for which he moved not a single finger for a single day, from the scanty pittance earned by a whole life of danger and fatigue-scarcely was General Fox cold, than the place was given away to Colonel M'Mahon-to the personal friend and favourite of the Prince, the pander to his worst passions, the recital of whose military exploits could be contained in a single page, and whose extent of actual service may be comprised in the putting on and putting off of his uniform.

This act of favouritism on the part of the Prince Regent requires no comment-it admits of no apology nor excuse; and the attempts of the partisans of the opposition to remove the disgrace and obloquy of the appointment from the Regent, and to fix it on the ministers, and their assertion, that the latter forced it on their royal master, were calculated to create disgust, contempt, and ridicule. It was said on behalf of the Prince, that he was not aware of the nature of the situation he bestowed on his favourite ;-thus to screen the Prince they could find no better method than to make a fool of him. He could not have known,' say his advocates, that in benefiting McMahon he injured thousands; and that his well-known goodness of heart—and the love of his country, would have led him to discover some other method of serving his valuable and faithful friend. This is adulation usque ad nauseam, and is another glaring proof that the Prince of Wales sometimes suffered more by the injudicious and extravagant praises of his friends, founded on no substantial act, than by the deed itself; and which, perhaps, but for their officiousness, would never have been exposed to the scrutiny of the public eye.

It would, perhaps, be difficult to find, throughout the pages of history, a monarch or a prince more open to adulation, or who had a greater share of it bestowed upon him than the Prince of Wales. No worshippers of Vishnu or of Fo could bend before the altars of their deities with greater reverence and adoration, than the tribe of sycophants, who, swarming in

the chambers of Carlton House, offered up their incense before their royal idol. It was a food which seemed to augment the appetite for it in proportion as it was administered; nor was it in the least perceived by the royal cormorant, that adulation is always attended by a companion from whom it is necessarily inseparable; this companion is duplicity, without which adulators could not carry on their approaches, nor circumvent those whom they mean to make the dupes of their purposes. The Prince of Wales, from his infancy, as far as flattery goes, was, in the true signification of the French phrase, un enfant gáté; but it should have been considered by those, who were in the habit of administering such a dangerous aliment to the royal mind, that there are no princes to whom flattery is so pernicious as to those who are born to wear the crown of this kingdom. In realms abroad, the voice of flattery proclaims their praises, whether they be worthy or undeserving; far otherwise, however, does the breath of adulalation affect an English prince. It lays him open to a number of inconveniences; it prepares a multiplicity of mortifications; the wretched incense of unfounded praise with which he is fed by a servile herd within the precincts of his palace, evaporates there, and he is, on that account, startled with the language which he hears when he ventures abroad and mingles with his subjects.

To flatter, therefore, a king of England, is not only to deceive, but to injure him. It exposes him to the indignation and even to the insults of the meanest of his subjects. These, indeed, from their obscurity, and the absence of all hope or fear from him, will be the readiest to vent their discontent without restraint. But let not a prince be mistaken, and despise their clamours; they are the faithful interpreters of what their betters do not choose to express in unqualified terms: but where is the monarch that takes warning from such notice, however coarsely given? It was by undervaluing such admonitions that Charles I. lost his head, and James II. his crown.

The bent of the mind of the Prince of Wales on his accession to the regency, unschooled by the past and reckless of the future, boded little good for the general interests of the country; he still indulged in all his former propensities for illicit

pleasures and expensive frivolities. The cut of a coat became of greater consequence than the amelioration of the condition of Ireland; and the tie of a neckcloth, an object of greater importance than parliamentary reform, or the adjustment of our disputes with America. The morning hours which a patriotic prince would have employed in devising measures for the good of the country, were idled away with a favourite tailor, taking measures of the royal person, and receiving his valuable information on the decided superiority of loose trousers to tight pantaloons. The different uniforms of the army became also, at this time, the peculiar objects of the gracious attention of the Prince Regent; and our brothers of York and Cumberland were called in to describe the trappings and fopperies of the German soldiery, the introduction of which into the British army (setting aside the expense to the nation) has rendered some of the men the laughing-stock of the public.

With the increase of power, increased also his extravagant propensities; his love of show became more vehement, and the thoughtlessness of youth settled into plans of organized dissoluteness and haughty seclusion. With an income exceeding the national revenue of a third-rate power, there appeared

*We can state it as a fact, that a council was held once in Carlton Palace on the subject of trousers and pantaloons, at which a certain Marchioness presided, assisted by other ladies, whose experience in matters of that sort was never questioned by any one. The knotty point to be determined was (and it was agreed upon una voce,) that there was an indelicacy attached to the pantaloon, from which the trouser was in a great degree exempt. The decision of the ladies in favour of the trouser was submitted to the approbation of the Prince Regent, who, from a knowledge of the anatomical perfection of his form, requested the ladies to reverse their decision; but, contra, the ladies declared, it had been formed after the most mature deliberation, and the closest inspection of the respective advantages and defects of the two modes of dress; the Prince therefore yielded, and from that moment the use of the pantaloon was prohibited at Carlton Palace, and, consequently, wherever fashion was supposed to predominate. Fashion has produced strange monsters in its time; and, perhaps, no place can be mentioned from which a greater number have issued than Carlton Palace. Lord Spencer showed his knowledge of the frivolity of the human character, when he cut off the skirts of his coat, and declared that there was nothing too ridiculous which would not be followed by the crowd, if any celebrated individual set the example; and on this head, the obligations which the world of fashion owes to the Prince of Wales have been acknowledged by far more sapient heads than ours. We throw no sneer upon hereditary maladies-they belong to the infirmities of our nature; but a malady hereditary in the Royal Family of England was the cause of the introduction of the stiff-starched shirt collar, projecting on each side of the face like a pig's ear, and which has been found exceedingly convenient to those who can afford to buy a collar, but not a shirt. It is rather singular, that the Spanish ruff was invented for the same purpose, and on account of the same malady.